Here at arbitrary constant we have previously been interested in internet usage statistics, particularly when it comes to disabled people. In June 2012 we reflected that half of all people who have never used the internet are disabled people. Where are we now?
The latest ONS internet usage statistics are out, and things look like they’ve only moderately moved in a positive direction for disabled people.
Overall, the number of people using the internet continues to increase: 85% of all adults had used the internet in the last three months (to March 2015), an increase of 1% since last quarter.
Some 11% of adults (5.9m people) have never used the internet (to March 2015). This is a reduction of 6% since March 2011, which remains encouraging.
Of these 5.9 million adults who had never used the internet, 3.0 million were aged 75 years and over. This represents 33% of people aged over 75. Similarly, 3.3 million disabled adults had never used the internet, which represents 27% of disabled adults.
In June 2012, 34% of people over 75 and 34% of disabled adults hadn’t used the internet. Thus, there has been a 4% and 7% increase in the number of people over 75 and disabled people using the internet respectively. Nevertheless, it remains the case that over half of all the people who have never used the internet are disabled people.
This is made clear in graph at the top of this post, which shows the proportion of non-internet users depending on whether they’re a disabled person or not over the last two years. Thus, whilst things are moving in the right direction, and consistently with, say, people aged over 75, disabled people are still disproportionately failing to reap the benefits of the internet, even in 2015.
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